SANTA CRUZ >> Civil rights organizations suing UC Santa Cruz timed their latest legal filing last week to prevent unlawful campus evictions headed into the start of the new school year.

On behalf of several students and a faculty member, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Center for Protest Law & Litigation and civil rights attorney Thomas Seabaugh fired their latest legal volley at the university Thursday — as UCSC began classes — requesting a court-ordered preliminary injunction. The motion, if approved, would order university officials not to lean on state penal code to “withdraw consent” for students and faculty to remain on campus for up to two weeks without individual hearings, unless they can prove “the individual poses a substantial threat of significant injury to persons or property.”

“Last May and June, the university just simply handed out a stack of bans to over 100 people who had been arrested in a nonviolent protest and there actually were no individual determinations made,” said Rachel Lederman, attorney for The Center for Protest Law and Litigation. “They didn’t even comply with the terms of the statute, which require a report to the chancellor as to the basis for banning the particular people.”No criminal charges have been filed after university police arrested and released some 119 people on suspicion of crimes ranging from being drunk in public and refusing to disperse, to remaining at the scene of a riot and resisting arrest during a law enforcement response on the night of May 30. The crackdown came just weeks before the school’s end of term and after a month of a Palestine solidarity encampment occupation. According to the plaintiffs’ court filings, the plaintiffs and other arrestees were ordered to stay away from campus for two weeks and faced “substantial hardships” such as loss of access to housing, their meal plan and university health services, as well as the ability to prepare for and take their finals.

In an emailed statement after the initial lawsuit was filed, UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason asserted that officials “remain confident that decisions made in the spring were necessary and critical to preserve safety, access, and operations of the campus.”

The case, which does not seek financial damage awards, names plaintiffs including Christine Hong, a UCSC professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Literature, and students Hannah “Elio” Ellutzi and Laaila Irshad. Lederman said she hopes the lawsuit sets an example for other universities in the state system. The preliminary injunction, by nature a temporary order, could set the stage for a permanent injunction against UCSC.

“Once we have the injunction in place, it would be quite foolish for any other California schools to do the same thing since it would be even easier for them to be sued,” Lederman said.

The university’s response to the original complaint, filed Sept. 9 in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, is due by Oct. 10 while its opposition to the preliminary injunction is due by Oct. 25. A hearing related to the preliminary injunction is scheduled before Judge Syda Cogliati on Nov. 19.